Persistent power-over-Ethernet (PoE) has solved one of the major problems in connected lighting. Power is delivered during maintenance reload for power critical devices, e.g. ceiling lights. PoE powered devices requiring power persistence are not limited to just lighting devices. However, even with Persistent PoE, during the maintenance reload, the management plane has no control over the PoE devices since there is no end-to-end data connectivity, and thus, no input from the PoE devices.